I prefer to download music "illegally" then send money forectly to the musicians. It takes more time but it's better for all involved.
Unfortunately, it's not better in all respects. Music sales are counted for most (all?) retail music stores. These counts are a major indicator of a band's popularity, which then impacts how much radio play they get, what marketing and sales promos, and media coverage they get. It's a big feedback system. If more sales are counted, they get more airtime and visibility, so sales go up, et. cyk. until the public burns out (e.g. Spice Girls).
In the short term, your method gives an artist more cash, but in the long run could hurt them. -----
D. Fischer
So I have not doubt that many will get into a hacking contest, trying to win $10k, where the downside is just vague concerns of abstract conceptsbeing threatened in the future. -----
D. Fischer
"...dedicated to Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest explorers of our time." <pedantic>
explorer (k-splôrr, -splr-) n. One that explores, especially one that explores a geographic area.
Stephen Hawking is undoubtedly one of the greatest theorists of our time. But he is definately not an explorer. Meriwether Lewis, Robert (?) Ballard, and others are explorers.
</pendantic>
Besides that, it looks like an interesting article:) -----
D. Fischer
"The big stumbler for x86 OSX is Apple's greed -- they don't want to lose the margins on their hardware."
Stupid, lousy companies, trying to maximize profits in legitimate ways. If their stock price continues to increase, I'm going to sell. I don't want all this money.
"Do you really believe you have a reasonable expectation of privacy? You put it online for the world to see."
That's an interesting point, which I would have agreed with a few months back. Now that I have my own website, though, my attitude has changed.
In my mind, I have leased a service by which I can make materials available to various people via a global computer network. That means that I have the right to restrict who sees what. The majority of my online info is freely available for the world to see.
But there is information that is meant for a specific group of people. Thus, I've given the URL to only those people who should have access. Some of it password protected as well.
Could certain unsavory types get to that info, despite my precautions? Probably, but I don't that think that merely putting it on an online computer automatically gives them that right.
<Bad Analogy>I lease an apartment which is visible to the world, and anyone can access the foyer. But that does not implicitly confer the right for anyone to enter my apartment and go through my belongings. And just because anyone can get into the foyer doesn't mean that have the right to read my magazines that are there because they don't fit in the mailboxes. If they want access to that material and my belongings, they can call me or 'buzz' me and ask to be let in.</Bad Analogy>
Put another way, eavesdropping is bad form even in the online world.
-----
D. Fischer
This may be a trivial question, but I'd really like an answer:
Can search engines find and index pages (html, php, etc.) that are not explicitly linked from the starting index.*htm* page in a given directory?
Put another way, can a search engine find my directory/web/foo/bar and then index the page opus.html, even though neither the directory nor the file are referenced or mentioned in any of the "public" files?
I ask because I was using non-referenced pages (can only be found by knowing the address) as part of a way to limit access to certain files to specific people.
I hope someone can provide some insight into this issue.
Be careful with Mailboxes Etc. They are *very* expensive! Get a price before handing them anything to be packaged or shipped. If they package something for you, then tell you their exhorbitant fee, you're stuck -- you have to pay 'cause they've got your stuff (as my brother-in-law learned recently). -----
D. Fischer
"how about making a search engine that is free, and NOT advertising based"
My impression is that Google is keeping its search site free, with little to no ads, and making the real money by licensing its engine to companies for their site-specific searches.
In effect, google's website is an ad & a loss-leader to get the big boys to pay for that magic on their own corporate site. -----
D. Fischer
The entire thing is worth reading, but here is a good quote: "Even though standard economic theory says that you should employ [differential pricing] strategies, I warn against them due to their impact on user loyalty." -----
D. Fischer
You raise an important issue. Currently, sexual harassment is essentially determined by whether the claimant felt harassed. In other words, if you claim you have been harassed by me, then you have; my actual statements & behavior are largely irrelevant.
This is gaining greater impact. In the last year, and group of extreme pro-life (anti-abortion) activists created a website listing abortionists' names & addresses in the Seattle(?) area. They also printed and distributed posters around the area. They were sued, and lost the case. The essential argument was that the doctors listed felt threatened, therefore they were. (anti-flame note: I don't agree with this group's tactics)
This is dangerous territory: speech is being regulated based on the listener's perception of it, not on what was actually said. Thus, you must not only consider what you want to say, but also what others might think/feel you are saying.
"Yes, a prof. has more to lose since it is harder to just change jobs"
I agree that this professor has got some chutzpah creating this gallery, and I think he's being smart about it.
But I also think that he can change jobs easily, if he wants. As a CMU professor, he could leave today and start work in the industry tomorrow. He probably gets emails and calls form headhunters, on a regular basis, plus his friends and professional contacts undoubtedly include other influential corporate types.
Finally, other Universities are always looking to hire "name-brand" professors. Dr. Touretzky could probably have a new professorship within a year if he wanted.
The real danger for him is being labeled a "renegade" or "trouble-maker". Businesses don't generally like those types, and that could hinder future job opportunities. However, universities sometimes do want just that attitude, so it might help him academically. -----
D. Fischer
Here is the Salon interview with David Touretzky, the creator of the online DeCSS gallery. It's quite interesting. Here's a great Q&A:
Has the MPAA threatened to sue you?
No. They haven't contacted me. My gallery is still in place; in fact I've received a bunch of new contributed exhibits recently. I consider the gallery to be an academic publication; it's listed on my curriculum vitae. If the MPAA wants to start censoring academic works, they know where to find me.
-----
D. Fischer
I appreciate your more thorough response. As a christian, I get edgy when I hear people talk about our "Christian Nation."
Having read four books this year on US History (by Stephen Ambrose, and excellent writer), it's quite clear that our history is truly muddled with some tremendous leaders, noble ideals, amazing actions as well as some horrible actions and hypocritical leaders at times.
An interesting note: during Jefferon's presidency, there was essentially taxation withour representation on the settlers living west of the Appalachian Mts. And that's a terribly sad occurrence of hypocrisy among some of our early leaders.
OTOH, with the wealthy landowners, there were those who came because they saw a possiblity for a better life for them and their children; not so much greed as the desire to improve their life.
Getting further OT; Jesus said to expect persecution, but He didn't say you had to stick around for it. Many from the early church agreed with that attitude when the fled Jerusalem to escape Pauline persecution.
Well, anyhow, I agree that we both initially over-simplified the case. The history of the US can't be categorized as simply "Good" or "Bad". -----
D. Fischer
I appreciate commentary on history, but I think you've swerved a bit close to revisionism.
Fleeing Persecution: Most people, I think, would call that sensible, not cowardly.
Capitalism: Taking advantage of a way to improve your life is usually considered wise, not greedy.
Refusing to accept taxation with representation: Most consider that sensible and appropriate; not negatively rebellious.
Granted, it's not that simplistic either, but you paint too cynical of a picture. It is accurate to say that Christians and the Christian worldview were significant influences on the formation of the USA. Not the only influence, nor were the theists perfect, but the impact is great, and much (most?) of it benefits us even now. -----
D. Fischer
By reasoning like this, we should limit car ownership to those who truly appreciate automobiles, roads, and understand what driving is really about. You must also be able to assemble your car from parts to possess one.
Perhaps we should also require people to 'earn' their first home by building it themselves... -----
D. Fischer
I was wondering the same thing. Is the poster asking about ways to engage in social protest, or just being euphemistic in his quest to break the law?
If someone were to ask me how they might best harass someone unseen, I'd want to know if they're planning a goodhearted prank, a serious protest, or want to steal their car before giving suggestions.
Could the poster be more forthcoming? -----
D. Fischer
I read just enough color theory to survive my Ph.D. prelim several years ago, and promptly purged it from memory, so take this for what it's worth...
You're right, human perception is not a linear function. We perceive green most strongly, over red and blue (in terms of a fundamental RGB colorspace). Also, our perception efficiency is roughly a bell-curve for each spectrum (R, G, B) with the max at some particular hue of each one.
Our perception is also significantly affected by external conditions: adjacent colors, lighting.
Two adjacent (non-white) colors will be perceived differently than if isolated on a white background.
All lights have a spectrum; put another way, few (none?) consumer & commerical lights produce "white" light. Mercury-vapor lamps (i.e. street lights) are distinctly yellow. Neon lights, I think, have more blue than sunlight. So on. This leads to the common experience of buying a purple shirt in a neon-lit store and finding out it's blue in the sunlight (or whatever; I don't recall the particular color shifts). Likewise, a certain blue, say, may be very appealing, but when surrounded by a certain green, say, it no longer appears as expected. Combine that with the lighting issues, and you've got a mess.
Related to lighting is the eye's light-adaptation level. When dark-adapted, nearly all color vision is lost, with the eye being most sensitive to red. So, a someone reading a magazine (or computer monitor) at night with dim lighting will see the colors differently than outside on a sunny day. (aside: I usually sleep on my side, so one eye is covered by the pillow and the other isn't. On a sunny morning, the non-covered eye is somewhat light-adapted whereas the other is more dark-adapted when I wake up. My green-lettered alarm clock then appears dual-colored. One eye sees the green but the other sees more yellow. Try it sometime: keep one eye covered for about 10 minutes and then look at strongly colored objects:)
Back to the original poster...uniformly spaced color doesn't seem like the best choice for human interface issues. But since when have computer programmers concerned themselves with human interface issues?:) -----
D. Fischer
On my personal site, I made graphics that looked good on my computer and stopped there.:) Well, I did some basic testing by viewing them at 4 different screen resolutions, and looked at a few things at different color depths. That helped with gross errors. But I didn't bother with I just didn't bother with subtle color-web-safeifying. Of course, having a five color paletee probably helped too.
Recently, looked at it on my dad's laptop through his AOL account, and it looked almost exactly as it is supposed to, javascript and all.
As a scientist, I give presentations occaisionally, and a (male) audience member later told me he was red-green color-blind, as was ~10% of the male population.
Since then, I've tried to never use both red & green as the only distinguising characteristic on a chart, etc.
While I'm at it - blue & red should not be placed next to each other, generally. Since they fall roughly at opposite ends of the visible spectrum, the eye's focal power differs the most between those colors. As your eye/brain tries to focus properly on two colors that require slightly different adaptations, you can perceive a "vibration" -- the boundary between the red & blue will have a high-frequency shimmering or vibrating appearance.
This is not universal, and is most noticeable between bright solids with adjacent, straight edges.
Further OT - it can also be used to interesting effect. There's a laser-tag place nearby, and the carpet has a blue-grid pattern offset on a red-grid pattern, illuminated partly by blacklights. From the observation gallery it has a 3D effect, with the carpet looking as if it has 12" deep holes in it. I believe it's due to the red-blue focusing issue. -----
D. Fischer
This is just personal observation on my home computer. I've got a P3 450 w/ 96 MB RAM, and NS Nav 4.7 is visibly faster than IE 5 at loading & rendering pages. It feels like nearly 2x faster.
I was surprised because the benchmarks I'd seen said IE was faster in general. But NS is clearly faster on my system.
If someone tells me how to do timed benchmarks, I'd be happy to run a few for some hard numbers. -----
D. Fischer
I agree. I started with a late version of Mosaic and used Netscape Nav through 4.7. I liked it for philosophical and productivity reasons. But with 4.7, I kept having weird crashes that required reboots.
I got sick of it, switched to IE 5, and after a week of grumbling, found that IE 5 has a better interface, better features, and is far more stable than NS Nav. The one thing still in NS's favor is that it renders much faster than IE 5.
But I prefer slow stability over fast crashes.
I played with Opera briefly, but $30 for a program that seems to do less than my MS "freeware" isn't a good deal. When and if Mozilla produces a stable, full featured browser, I'll switch, but for now, I'm sticking with IE. -----
D. Fischer
Re:Who really needs a lesson
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 2
"Why? What is the legal system afraid of? "
Jury tampering. Inadmissable evidence being used to influence the jury. Uninformed commentary being taken as legal counsel. Prejudicial statements made about the plaintiffs/defendants by ignorant media persons.
If the facts are not being presented in the courtroom, then the respective parties have failed to do their job. The sequestered jury is meant to protect our right to a fair trial by our peers, uninfluenced by unrelated or inadmissable information from outside sources (who may have a vested interest in the case's outcome).
I agree that the system is imperfect. I am appalled by the excessively long isolation forced on juries in some high profile cases (i.e. the O.J. case). It's clear that the guarantee to an expedient trial by a jury of one's peers is not always met.
But I don't think our courts will be improved by further removing civil protections. -----
D. Fischer
Slashdot Mirror
I prefer to download music "illegally" then send money forectly to the musicians. It takes more time but it's better for all involved.
Unfortunately, it's not better in all respects. Music sales are counted for most (all?) retail music stores. These counts are a major indicator of a band's popularity, which then impacts how much radio play they get, what marketing and sales promos, and media coverage they get. It's a big feedback system. If more sales are counted, they get more airtime and visibility, so sales go up, et. cyk. until the public burns out (e.g. Spice Girls).
In the short term, your method gives an artist more cash, but in the long run could hurt them.
-----
D. Fischer
People are willing to humiliate themselves on national TV for $500k, and backstab, lie, and suffer insect-infested open sores for a shot at $1G.
So I have not doubt that many will get into a hacking contest, trying to win $10k, where the downside is just vague concerns of abstract concepts being threatened in the future.
-----
D. Fischer
"...dedicated to Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest explorers of our time."
:)
<pedantic>
explorer (k-splôrr, -splr-) n.
One that explores, especially one that explores a geographic area.
Stephen Hawking is undoubtedly one of the greatest theorists of our time. But he is definately not an explorer. Meriwether Lewis, Robert (?) Ballard, and others are explorers.
</pendantic>
Besides that, it looks like an interesting article
-----
D. Fischer
Hear Hear!
I spent three summers and academic years programming both cubes & slabs, B&W and color, as an undergrad. Those machines were lucious.
I'm a PC guy now, but I'm hoping OS X is good enough to lure me away.
-----
D. Fischer
"The big stumbler for x86 OSX is Apple's greed -- they don't want to lose the margins on their hardware."
Stupid, lousy companies, trying to maximize profits in legitimate ways. If their stock price continues to increase, I'm going to sell. I don't want all this money.
:)
-----
D. Fischer
When in doubt, trust that PBS is in effect: People are Basically Stupid.
:)
-----
D. Fischer
"Do you really believe you have a reasonable expectation of privacy? You put it online for the world to see." That's an interesting point, which I would have agreed with a few months back. Now that I have my own website, though, my attitude has changed. In my mind, I have leased a service by which I can make materials available to various people via a global computer network. That means that I have the right to restrict who sees what. The majority of my online info is freely available for the world to see. But there is information that is meant for a specific group of people. Thus, I've given the URL to only those people who should have access. Some of it password protected as well. Could certain unsavory types get to that info, despite my precautions? Probably, but I don't that think that merely putting it on an online computer automatically gives them that right. <Bad Analogy>I lease an apartment which is visible to the world, and anyone can access the foyer. But that does not implicitly confer the right for anyone to enter my apartment and go through my belongings. And just because anyone can get into the foyer doesn't mean that have the right to read my magazines that are there because they don't fit in the mailboxes. If they want access to that material and my belongings, they can call me or 'buzz' me and ask to be let in.</Bad Analogy> Put another way, eavesdropping is bad form even in the online world.
-----
D. Fischer
This may be a trivial question, but I'd really like an answer:
/web/foo/bar and then index the page opus.html, even though neither the directory nor the file are referenced or mentioned in any of the "public" files?
Can search engines find and index pages (html, php, etc.) that are not explicitly linked from the starting index.*htm* page in a given directory?
Put another way, can a search engine find my directory
I ask because I was using non-referenced pages (can only be found by knowing the address) as part of a way to limit access to certain files to specific people.
I hope someone can provide some insight into this issue.
Thanks
-----
D. Fischer
Be careful with Mailboxes Etc. They are *very* expensive! Get a price before handing them anything to be packaged or shipped. If they package something for you, then tell you their exhorbitant fee, you're stuck -- you have to pay 'cause they've got your stuff (as my brother-in-law learned recently).
-----
D. Fischer
"how about making a search engine that is free, and NOT advertising based"
My impression is that Google is keeping its search site free, with little to no ads, and making the real money by licensing its engine to companies for their site-specific searches.
In effect, google's website is an ad & a loss-leader to get the big boys to pay for that magic on their own corporate site.
-----
D. Fischer
Here is a link to a prescient column by Jakob Nielsen: Profit Maximization vs. User Loyalty
The entire thing is worth reading, but here is a good quote: "Even though standard economic theory says that you should employ [differential pricing] strategies, I warn against them due to their impact on user loyalty."
-----
D. Fischer
"and a number of sexual harrassment lawsuits."
You raise an important issue. Currently, sexual harassment is essentially determined by whether the claimant felt harassed. In other words, if you claim you have been harassed by me, then you have; my actual statements & behavior are largely irrelevant.
This is gaining greater impact. In the last year, and group of extreme pro-life (anti-abortion) activists created a website listing abortionists' names & addresses in the Seattle(?) area. They also printed and distributed posters around the area. They were sued, and lost the case. The essential argument was that the doctors listed felt threatened, therefore they were. (anti-flame note: I don't agree with this group's tactics)
This is dangerous territory: speech is being regulated based on the listener's perception of it, not on what was actually said. Thus, you must not only consider what you want to say, but also what others might think/feel you are saying.
-----
D. Fischer
"Yes, a prof. has more to lose since it is harder to just change jobs"
I agree that this professor has got some chutzpah creating this gallery, and I think he's being smart about it.
But I also think that he can change jobs easily, if he wants. As a CMU professor, he could leave today and start work in the industry tomorrow. He probably gets emails and calls form headhunters, on a regular basis, plus his friends and professional contacts undoubtedly include other influential corporate types.
Finally, other Universities are always looking to hire "name-brand" professors. Dr. Touretzky could probably have a new professorship within a year if he wanted.
The real danger for him is being labeled a "renegade" or "trouble-maker". Businesses don't generally like those types, and that could hinder future job opportunities. However, universities sometimes do want just that attitude, so it might help him academically.
-----
D. Fischer
Here is the Salon interview with David Touretzky, the creator of the online DeCSS gallery. It's quite interesting. Here's a great Q&A: Has the MPAA threatened to sue you?
No. They haven't contacted me. My gallery is still in place; in fact I've received a bunch of new contributed exhibits recently. I consider the gallery to be an academic publication; it's listed on my curriculum vitae. If the MPAA wants to start censoring academic works, they know where to find me.
-----
D. Fischer
I appreciate your more thorough response. As a christian, I get edgy when I hear people talk about our "Christian Nation."
Having read four books this year on US History (by Stephen Ambrose, and excellent writer), it's quite clear that our history is truly muddled with some tremendous leaders, noble ideals, amazing actions as well as some horrible actions and hypocritical leaders at times.
An interesting note: during Jefferon's presidency, there was essentially taxation withour representation on the settlers living west of the Appalachian Mts. And that's a terribly sad occurrence of hypocrisy among some of our early leaders.
OTOH, with the wealthy landowners, there were those who came because they saw a possiblity for a better life for them and their children; not so much greed as the desire to improve their life.
Getting further OT; Jesus said to expect persecution, but He didn't say you had to stick around for it. Many from the early church agreed with that attitude when the fled Jerusalem to escape Pauline persecution.
Well, anyhow, I agree that we both initially over-simplified the case. The history of the US can't be categorized as simply "Good" or "Bad".
-----
D. Fischer
I appreciate commentary on history, but I think you've swerved a bit close to revisionism.
Fleeing Persecution: Most people, I think, would call that sensible, not cowardly.
Capitalism: Taking advantage of a way to improve your life is usually considered wise, not greedy.
Refusing to accept taxation with representation: Most consider that sensible and appropriate; not negatively rebellious.
Granted, it's not that simplistic either, but you paint too cynical of a picture. It is accurate to say that Christians and the Christian worldview were significant influences on the formation of the USA. Not the only influence, nor were the theists perfect, but the impact is great, and much (most?) of it benefits us even now.
-----
D. Fischer
By reasoning like this, we should limit car ownership to those who truly appreciate automobiles, roads, and understand what driving is really about. You must also be able to assemble your car from parts to possess one.
Perhaps we should also require people to 'earn' their first home by building it themselves...
-----
D. Fischer
My business/legal knowledge is minimal, but I think the safest way is to incoporate yourself, so to speak.
Create a business, file the proper papers, and have the software be created for the company.
Generally, the company can be held liable for the sins of its products, but the employees can't.
This is why MS may be broken up, fined, etc., but Bill Gates won't go to jail.
Any lawyers out to there to clarify or correct?
-----
D. Fischer
I was wondering the same thing. Is the poster asking about ways to engage in social protest, or just being euphemistic in his quest to break the law?
If someone were to ask me how they might best harass someone unseen, I'd want to know if they're planning a goodhearted prank, a serious protest, or want to steal their car before giving suggestions.
Could the poster be more forthcoming?
-----
D. Fischer
I read just enough color theory to survive my Ph.D. prelim several years ago, and promptly purged it from memory, so take this for what it's worth...
:)
:)
You're right, human perception is not a linear function. We perceive green most strongly, over red and blue (in terms of a fundamental RGB colorspace). Also, our perception efficiency is roughly a bell-curve for each spectrum (R, G, B) with the max at some particular hue of each one.
Our perception is also significantly affected by external conditions: adjacent colors, lighting.
Two adjacent (non-white) colors will be perceived differently than if isolated on a white background.
All lights have a spectrum; put another way, few (none?) consumer & commerical lights produce "white" light. Mercury-vapor lamps (i.e. street lights) are distinctly yellow. Neon lights, I think, have more blue than sunlight. So on. This leads to the common experience of buying a purple shirt in a neon-lit store and finding out it's blue in the sunlight (or whatever; I don't recall the particular color shifts). Likewise, a certain blue, say, may be very appealing, but when surrounded by a certain green, say, it no longer appears as expected. Combine that with the lighting issues, and you've got a mess.
Related to lighting is the eye's light-adaptation level. When dark-adapted, nearly all color vision is lost, with the eye being most sensitive to red. So, a someone reading a magazine (or computer monitor) at night with dim lighting will see the colors differently than outside on a sunny day. (aside: I usually sleep on my side, so one eye is covered by the pillow and the other isn't. On a sunny morning, the non-covered eye is somewhat light-adapted whereas the other is more dark-adapted when I wake up. My green-lettered alarm clock then appears dual-colored. One eye sees the green but the other sees more yellow. Try it sometime: keep one eye covered for about 10 minutes and then look at strongly colored objects
Back to the original poster...uniformly spaced color doesn't seem like the best choice for human interface issues. But since when have computer programmers concerned themselves with human interface issues?
-----
D. Fischer
On my personal site, I made graphics that looked good on my computer and stopped there. :) Well, I did some basic testing by viewing them at 4 different screen resolutions, and looked at a few things at different color depths. That helped with gross errors. But I didn't bother with I just didn't bother with subtle color-web-safeifying. Of course, having a five color paletee probably helped too.
:)
Recently, looked at it on my dad's laptop through his AOL account, and it looked almost exactly as it is supposed to, javascript and all.
Oh yes, I have content too
-----
D. Fischer
As a scientist, I give presentations occaisionally, and a (male) audience member later told me he was red-green color-blind, as was ~10% of the male population.
Since then, I've tried to never use both red & green as the only distinguising characteristic on a chart, etc.
While I'm at it - blue & red should not be placed next to each other, generally. Since they fall roughly at opposite ends of the visible spectrum, the eye's focal power differs the most between those colors. As your eye/brain tries to focus properly on two colors that require slightly different adaptations, you can perceive a "vibration" -- the boundary between the red & blue will have a high-frequency shimmering or vibrating appearance.
This is not universal, and is most noticeable between bright solids with adjacent, straight edges.
Further OT - it can also be used to interesting effect. There's a laser-tag place nearby, and the carpet has a blue-grid pattern offset on a red-grid pattern, illuminated partly by blacklights. From the observation gallery it has a 3D effect, with the carpet looking as if it has 12" deep holes in it. I believe it's due to the red-blue focusing issue.
-----
D. Fischer
This is just personal observation on my home computer. I've got a P3 450 w/ 96 MB RAM, and NS Nav 4.7 is visibly faster than IE 5 at loading & rendering pages. It feels like nearly 2x faster.
I was surprised because the benchmarks I'd seen said IE was faster in general. But NS is clearly faster on my system.
If someone tells me how to do timed benchmarks, I'd be happy to run a few for some hard numbers.
-----
D. Fischer
I agree. I started with a late version of Mosaic and used Netscape Nav through 4.7. I liked it for philosophical and productivity reasons. But with 4.7, I kept having weird crashes that required reboots.
I got sick of it, switched to IE 5, and after a week of grumbling, found that IE 5 has a better interface, better features, and is far more stable than NS Nav. The one thing still in NS's favor is that it renders much faster than IE 5.
But I prefer slow stability over fast crashes.
I played with Opera briefly, but $30 for a program that seems to do less than my MS "freeware" isn't a good deal. When and if Mozilla produces a stable, full featured browser, I'll switch, but for now, I'm sticking with IE.
-----
D. Fischer
"Why? What is the legal system afraid of? "
Jury tampering. Inadmissable evidence being used to influence the jury. Uninformed commentary being taken as legal counsel. Prejudicial statements made about the plaintiffs/defendants by ignorant media persons.
If the facts are not being presented in the courtroom, then the respective parties have failed to do their job. The sequestered jury is meant to protect our right to a fair trial by our peers, uninfluenced by unrelated or inadmissable information from outside sources (who may have a vested interest in the case's outcome).
I agree that the system is imperfect. I am appalled by the excessively long isolation forced on juries in some high profile cases (i.e. the O.J. case). It's clear that the guarantee to an expedient trial by a jury of one's peers is not always met.
But I don't think our courts will be improved by further removing civil protections.
-----
D. Fischer